Metrojet accident over Sinai

[DoctorFunkenstein]

I don't think there is a thread?

I will be having various moments of silence today as I think about the people who so sadly lost their lives.

Russia has a day of mourning. I think it would be nice if we spared a thought.

and btw - no idea yet what happened, professional opinion seems to be leaning towards structural break up mid air, but we will have to wait and see. Other airlines are avoiding the area as a precaution until we know more.

Russia stands as much chance of getting rid of them as any major military power.

Which begs the question: what sort of future Syria does Russia want? Is it remotely possible that they might see this as a reason to support Assad - for vile as his regime might be, he was able to keep extremists in check and presumably could do so again. Or if not him, another 'strong' leader who would do much the same but without the legacy of previous actions?

Or is it the case that, now IS has established itself in ways it had not done at the time the fight against Assad's regime began, there is no reversion to Syria as was? Is so, what replaces it?

"I am actually a bit surprised that in this day and age, we can not know what happened, IYSWIM."

I heard something on a rolling nephews channel last night which said it was possible that there was (US?) satellite footage of the plane's last moments. But it was late at night, I haven't seen that info anywhere else, and am wondering if I misheard. But if such footage exists, that might be driving the current stance ahead of full black box investigations (which presumably take weeks)

We flew home from Sharm 10 hours after the crash, and considering what had happened that day, airport security was surprisingly lax. It's a small airport and it wasn't nice at all sitting there thinking those poor people had been there just that morning.

I do feel for the people of Egypt too, staff in our hotel worked their backsides off for 12+ hours a day, and almost all were sending their wages to family, wives, children, who live hundreds of miles away from them. They're really in dire straits if tourism drops off, which it undoubtedly will.

We've been to Egypt 3 times now and unfortunately, in all honesty I don't think I'll be going back.

I am actually a bit surprised that in this day and age, we can not know what happened, IYSWIM. I was surprised with MH370 as well.

Well, with MN360 they have no plane and thus no evidence to go on. Anything would just be speculation. Perhaps it is a sign that the "black box" data needs to be transmitted off the plane in some way so that there is data even without the plane.

They usually do find out the most likely cause for a crash though.

'"I am actually a bit surprised that in this day and age, we can not know what happened, IYSWIM."

It can take months to piece together what happened.

'there was (US?) satellite footage of the plane's last moments'

"Was a midair heat flash that a U.S. satellite detected over the Sinai Peninsula when the flight went down a sign of an explosion aboard the plane? And if that was the case, why haven't investigators found signs of an explosive impact on the crash victims' bodies, as Russian state media reports? Could the plane's wreckage show that a past repair went awry?"

edition.cnn.com/2015/11/03/africa/russian-plane-crash-egypt-sinai/

I don't think it is possible to state that 'the Russians' brought down MH17 last year, when the official report suggests, if anything, that it was more likely to have been a missile launched from land occupied at that time by the rebel groups...so not necessarily Russians at all...besides which the criminal part of proceedings hasn't finished yet.

I have to admit a great fondness for Russia and for Putin, and hate the propaganda we see so much of recently. It's not like the UK over there, but that doesn't mean it is 'the enemy'.

Two heat spikes, one presumably at the crash site, the other while it was in the air.

Soup - streaming live data from every flight would be difficult to action, there are c. 65K flights every day. It would use a massive amount of bandwidth. There are various feasibility issues there

Soup "Well, with MN360 they have no plane and thus no evidence to go on. Anything would just be speculation."

sorry, I should have been clearer. That was the bit that surprised me. Planes breaking up in midair and breaking up to the point that we couldn't find anything - initially - and then a scientist said to me that there were huge swathes of that geographical area that we don't even know exist!

I guess it's just a weird thing, to me, that we can only carry 100ml of liquids yet there's so many unknowns that governments consider acceptable as a level of risk. That said, travel does seem to involve ignoring risk to a higher extent. When there was the saga of the trapped Eurostar and they didn't even seem to have spare water, I wondered what the heck would happen if there was a terrorist attack in the Chunnel...and it seems like a sitting target for that sort of thing.

so on one hand, quite rightly, we are urged to report unattended packages on transport. On the other hand, the HSE think it's fine for Eurostart to travel with no spare water supplies. Funny world.

Thank you for your replies Claig, I find it all very confusing and never can quite grasp who are the good guys in all this but I seriously hope Putin can get rid of barbaric IS.

I have a great fondness for Russia too doctor (did Russian at University). Putin is a lunatic though.

I don't think it is possible to state that 'the Russians' brought down MH17 last year, when the official report suggests, if anything, that it was more likely to have been a missile launched from land occupied at that time by the rebel groups...so not necessarily Russians at all

My take on it, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, was that since the middle was launched from (pro Russian) rebel territory, then it very much means that the Russians were very much responsible. Who gave the rebels the missile launcher, after all?

Forgive the overuse of "very much"!

No, no I disagree. Supporting Assad was probably the most (or only) sensible thing to do - at least Syria was peaceful for many years under military rule, AFAIK.

I don't see Putin as a lunatic at all.

Driver - perhaps I misunderstood. You may be correct. Still - there is no final decision on this, as yet.

Driver, the Russians dispute that it was fired from Russian separatist held territory

"Report 'wrong'

Earlier, Russian officials from Almaz-Antey - the state firm that manufactures Buk missiles - said the evidence suggested the plane had been shot down by a Buk missile fired by Ukrainian forces.

Using their own simulation, the officials said the missile had been fired from Zaroshchenke in Ukrainian-controlled territory, some 20km (12 miles) away from the area highlighted by the Dutch report.

They argued the missile used was a decades-old model no longer used by Russian forces."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34511973

I suspect Putin may react very very strongly. ISIS will be no match against the Russian military machine.

The methods will garner some pursed lips, but ultimately the western world (and some sectors in the middle east) will be secretly pleased. China will say nowt. Putin will retain his reputation and thus position in Russia.

Until the next time...

Perhaps that's why the Sharm airport is " closed", perhaps the governments of the world are standing back knowing Putin will now retaliate and allowing him the room to do it .

Sharm airport isn't closed though, there's plenty of flights flying in and out. Just not British ones. Russian flights are still arriving/departing

I heard on the news that Italian flights are still flying from there.

I'd heard it was based on 'specific intelligence' so maybe the uk know more?

I don't think that Putin is a lunatic at all. Seems rather sensible to me, if we judge by what comes out of his mouth and his actions. Wrt Russia, and wider pan-European/global current affairs, I think that the scales are falling away from many people's eyes. I wonder if a small contribution to this in the UK was UK citizens' assessment of their own and western media's (not to mention Stephen Fry's) reactions to the Russia homophobia issue. I remember feeling very annoyed about people's silent acceptance of seeing people dangling from cranes and being thrown off buildings for being gay in the ME (can't see you, Stephen. What's that you say?), while there were almost parading protests and certainly boycotts of Russian goods and services. I wonder if that response made people feel ashamed and re-evaluate the media's role in their own lives.

Driver, the Russians dispute that it was fired from Russian separatist held territory

Well, they would, wouldn't they?

LBC said that the grounding of UK flights was not based on the crash, but on separate intelligence. So another threat?

The bbc news this lunchtime is carrying lots of footage of people queuing to check in for UK-bound flights at the airport in Egypt, and some of the resorts.

There seems to be a few school age children in the queues. How embarrassing is that? You pretend your kids are sick for the first three days of school after half term and suddenly you have no idea when you'll be able to get them back to school because all flights have been cancelled but the TV cameras are there taking photos of your family and putting them on the BBC news!